http://www.just-international.org/ar… “As the shock of the global credit crunch subsides, the next phase inevitably kicks-in: steeply rising unemployment and growing domestic political pressure for a return to protectionism. As the global economic hangover hits home, the world’s nations, like a bunch of recalcitrant teenagers, sink into their morose, self-centred protectionist sulks. “

In fact – it wasn’t until I switched job roles/employers that I started getting involved in free software – mainly because I could use free software as a drop-in replacement without impacting others around me

schestowitz> Well – I can’t feel like Microsoft had a hand in that – we as a school chose what was best for us – we did that without any word from Microsoft – and that was having solved all of the “vendor problems” – we had solutions for opening/working with MS Word docs and such (that the students would have created at home and brought into the school) …

Since we were only a high school, and the level of IT we were teaching did not require the need for knowledge of non-MS systems – so it was impossible to convince the upper management that they should sign on the dotted line for that

Unless someone can come up with a business model where big-budget productions can be broadcast without need for television networks (and still justify their cost to produce) then that kind of stuff won’t go away

IDG gets its knickers twisted: “Continuing, recently I was irked by the following article: Multicore chips pose next big challenge for industry. My response to the IDG News Service writer, Do ya think? May I suggest a better headline Multicore chips pose the biggest most monumental and grandest challenge ever to the entire industry.” http://www.linux-mag.com/id/7278/

http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/0… “During the workshop it was Charles Schulz of Ars Aperta who articulated this frustration among SMEs as RAND referring to “RANDom licensing at the sight of competitors.” In his presentation, Schulz also pointed out that (F)RAND terms are discriminating against free software. Even RAND terms linked to zer

o royalties, the so-called RF-on-RAND (”Royalty Free on RAND”), RAND-RF (”RAND Royalty Free”) or RAND-Z (”RAND with Zero royalties”) can exhibit the same problems if they do not permit sublicensing, for instance.

Free software (aka Open Source, FOSS or FLOSS) is a software model defined by a high level of user control over the software in combination with far-reaching freedoms to inspect the source code, to study and innovate upon the software. In particular, it is based on the principle that every living person and every legal entity can be a user, developer, distributor, or any combination of the above. Only conditions which permit this t

http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbc… “The application “was filed in error and will be withdrawn,” said IBM spokesman Steve Malkiewicz.” Sounds like they are lying. Applications don’t just file themselves. They got caught

“Leaders of the world’s largest economies struck a closed-door deal late Tuesday to create an international court for intellectual property litigation in a move sources said they deemed a best effort to turn back global economic demise.” http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/04/… Globalisation of anti-Free software laws

“The court is seen by WIPO as an extension of its work with the treaties, and the agreement comes at a critical time for WIPO, which has not completed negotiations on a new treaty in years. “This fits with a growth strategy during the downturn,” said WIPO’s Charle Latan. “Litigation.””

http://www.garyreback.com/book.html “Free the Market! provides a riveting, inside look at the ways big companies have gradually recovered their market-dominating powers – damaging consumer welfare, entrenching industry incumbents, and making life miserable for entrepreneurs in the process.”

This? -> “Support for integrity management in the kernel has been merged. This code makes use of the trusted platform module (TPM) built into many systems to ensure that the system’s files (including its executable software) have not been corrupted, maliciously or otherwise.”

As the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) turns 60 and some ask why the Cold War alliance still exists, NATO is launching new media and public relations efforts. The NewsMarket, an online source of b-roll and video news release footage, is providing NATO-produced videos to journalists.”

http://www.prwatch.org/node/8315 “The proposed legislation to have the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulate tobacco is “window-dressing masquerading as legislation,” according to Alan Blum, M.D., director of the University of Alabama Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society.”

The criminal enterprise known as Microsoft finds itself embarrassingly exposed in the courtroom, for the IRS belatedly (decades too late) targets the company in an effort to tackle massive tax evasions

A look at some of last week's patent news, with imperative responses that criticise corporate exploitation of patents for protectionism (excluding and/or driving away the competition using legal threats)

Vista 10 to bring new ways for spies (and other crackers) to remotely access people's computers and remotely modify the binary files on them (via Windows Update, which for most people cannot be disabled)